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Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

manytricks.com

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Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#101

Post by davesque »

jakobegger wrote: post #19

I was about to complain loudly about bullshit patents, but then I took some time to read the actual patent (make sure to look at the images too!), and it turns out that this patent describes a method that is very similar to what Moom does (judging by screenshots). This is not a case of the overly broad patents that we usually complain about, this is a very precise patent.

I disagree. I feel that patents should exist to help companies recoup the cost of expensive R&D. Designing a window manager of this kind doesn't fall under that umbrella. Any reasonably competent software designer could come up with UX like this without a large time investment. Different companies should be able to iterate and refine these kinds of designs. This only has the effect of reducing the size of the software economy and does not provide the intended benefit of helping anyone recoup expensive development costs.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#102

Post by mark-r »

danschumann wrote: post #96

I thought patents were invalid if they were just "something you can do in the real world... but using a computer". I'm pretty sure grid layouts have been in mathetmatics, printing, etc for hundreds/thousands of years. It's likely a shit patent.

A bad patent is still a patent, and if it shouldn't have been granted the burden is on you to prove it. With all the costs and risks involved.

What galls me most about the patent system is all of the things that are trivially obvious once an enabling technology becomes available, and the first person to apply gets a government sponsored monopoly.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#103

Post by coredog64 »

wereHamster wrote: post #7
Plugawy wrote: post #3

Interesting, I guess there's so much prior work around* it should be easy to dismiss the patent. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager

Please go read the patent, it describes an "apparatus and method" that is much more advanced than traditional tiling window managers. The patent doesn't even compare to simple terminal based tiling of sub-shells. It also describes a GUI to control the positions, and describes in detail how it's supposed to work. There is a section "Description of the Related Art" in the patent which makes references to existing (at t…

I don't even believe that the author knew about the WinKey/arrow key shortcuts. They let you size a window to half a single viewport without the rigmarole described in the application.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#105

Post by DanBC »

_asummers wrote: post #48
ivanbakel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to say where the fault lies. I would rather live in a world of patents than not, if we insist on sticking to the idea of not forcing research and discoveries into the public domain. What would have prevented this particular case?

This is an obvious feature for just about any user, making it nonpatentable by the criteria of USPTO, as far as I understand it. This is also not novel, though it is very useful (for the other 2 criteria).

> This is also not novel

What other tiling WMs included a gui menu in the title bar to select the layout?

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#106

Post by learc83 »

geocar wrote: post #98
learc83 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comments in this thread, your understanding of first to file is incorrect. First to file doesn't invalidate un-filed prior art or give it lower presedence. First to file only really matters when there are overlapping patent applications. Basically a situation where one person files first but the other applicant claims they actually invented first but didn't publish the invention. Had the person who claims t…

> First to file doesn't invalidate un-filed prior art or give it lower presedence. I'm not saying it invalidates anything. I'm saying this kind of arm-chair lawyering isn't going to impress a judge. > First to file only really matters when there are overlapping patent applications. 35 USC 102 (b).

35 USC 102 (b) covers the exception that allows an inventor up to a year to file after publishing their invention. It prevents an inventor's own disclosure from being used as prior art to deny the inventor's patent request--provided the patent was filed within a year of the disclosure.

What do you think it says?

>I'm not saying it invalidates anything.

You said this:

>They do not have to pay as much attention to un-filed prior art because the US uses a "first-to-file"[2] system.

That implies that un-filed prior art was made less important by first to file, which is incorrect.

>I'm saying this kind of arm-chair lawyering isn't going to impress a judge.

Good thing I'm not trying to impress a judge. I'm just trying to stop the spread of misinformation on first to file.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#107

Post by josaka »

dctoedt wrote: post #95

The most important single thing to read in a patent is the claims, especially the independent (stand-alone) claims. Infringement analysis amounts to attempting to map the claim's list of elements onto the accused method or structure; if the map function returns FALSE, then that particular claim very likely isn't infringed by that particular accused method or structure. (That is: If any claim element isn't present—pos…

Came here to say this, and I wish more non-lawyers understood how to read a patent. The scope of coverage is not the title. The scope of coverage is not the drawings. It's the claims.

If folks want to explain why this shouldn't have issued, identify a single document from before 2008 that describes every single feature of the claims.

It's worth noting that this issued just before a 2014 Supreme Court case (Alice v. CLS Bank) that probably can be used to kill the patent regardless of whether it's novel and non-obvious.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#109

Post by DanBC »

tyingq wrote: post #31
geocar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent doesn't appear to describe tiling window management, but the composition of a window layout using a number of menu options that integrate neatly with the existing environment's window controls, and that visually demonstrate their effect. Indeed the patent describes a user interface to accomplish this that looks very similar to screenshots of Moom. My experience with the USPTO is that statements like "I don…

>The patent doesn't appear to describe tiling window management It does though. The screenshots show grid options, and describe how the end user can place windows in the grid. It specifically complains about how MS Windows has overlapping windows. Grid + no overlap == tiling. >Indeed the patent describes a user interface to accomplish this that looks very similar to screenshots of Moom. Sure. The argument about "nove…

> The idea that 2008 was the first time someone had the notion of grid layouts and allowing an end user to place a window in them is just silly.

That's not what's being patented. The gui menu to select placement of windows is what's being patented.

Did that exist before 2008?

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#110

Post by novaleaf »

mistersquid wrote: post #58

What's really galling about this particular patent trolling is that Rob Griffiths, principal of Many Tricks which publishes Moom, is one of the original OS X nerd's nerd. He's done so much for the OS X and the UNIX communities, having run Mac OS X Hints for more than a decade. [0] When pro users were just figuring out best practices for everything from window management to command line AppleScript (osascript) to post…

okay you like the guy, but unlikable people need sympathies too.
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